I posted this on facebook earlier today, and am reposting it here for the non-facebook addicted among us!

Attention science geeks:

The natural sweetener that I use in my all natural lip balm is called Ammonium Glycyrrhizate and comes from licorice root. It is 50x sweeter than sucrose (table sugar), and is a “phytochemical.” In fact, Ammonium Glycyrrhizate is a natural phytochemical the kills viruses!

Phytochemicals occur naturally in plants and many have biological significance. Salicilin (commonly known as Aspirin) is one of the earliest discovered phytochemicals. Antioxidants are another well known type of phytochemical. As many as 10,000 phytochemicals are suspected to have the potential to someday treat diseases such as cancer, metabolic illness and stroke.

And, as I hinted to above, Ammonium Glycyrrhizate is showing potential in the war against viruses. As the article below points out, this humble plant-derived sweetener has been shown to obliterate viral herpes and possibly HIV.